2018 was a great year for us here in the Creative Europe Desk Ireland Culture Office. Each year our work takes us across the width and breadth of the country and 2018 was no different. In addition to Dublin we participated and organised events in Galway, Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford and Belfast. We were involved in over 14 events either organised by ourselves or with others.

We hosted information desks and met delegates at the VAI Get Together and at the Irish Museums Association Conference. We were delighted to be asked to speak at the launch of Land / Sea / Signal at Rua Red as part of the EUCIDA project.

It was a pleasure to work with the Waterford Europe Direct Information Centre in an interactive information session exploring the different aspects of developing and running a European project. Creative Europe beneficiaries including Chris Clarke, The Glucksman Gallery (VIBE project), Clodagh Whelan, West Cork Literary Festival (READ ON project); Edel Doran, First Fortnight Festival (NEFELE project) and Katherine Collins, Waterford City and Council Council (Murals for Communities project) came and shared their experiences.

European collaboration is at the heart of any Creative Europe project and 2018 saw us collaborate with our colleague in the Portuguese Creative Europe desk at a Creative Europe seminar held during the IETM meeting in Porto.

Another key collaboration in 2018 was with our colleague in the Creative Europe Desk UK – Northern Ireland. The Desks collaborated on two events which looked at two key priorities within the Creative Europe Culture Sub-Programme: audience development and new business models.

The first of these events took place in May, in Belfast and Dublin and featured a key note from Christina Da Milano one of the authors of the European Commission report into audience development in Europe. The full report can be found on the Engaging Audiences website here . Be sure to read the extensive case studies found in the report that are very relevant and useful to the arts and culture sectors here in Ireland.

The second was held in December and focused on new business models and building resilience and sustainability within the arts and culture sector. We had a fantastic key note speaker in Sandy Fitzgerald from Olivearte who took us through the EU funded Creative Lenses project.

All of our events relied on the kindness of Irish beneficiaries of Creative Europe taking time out to come and present and share with their peers in the arts and culture sector their experiences of developing and running EU projects. So we would like to thank all those who came and presented at one of our events in 2018. Of course our biggest thank you is to all those who came along to one of our events in 2018.

2018 saw Ireland’s biggest success under the Cooperation Projects Strand of the Creative Europe Programme with 17 projects selected with an Irish partner and 1 project selected with an Irish lead coordinator! You can read about the successful projects here.